


Spidersleep II

by Not_You



Series: Eight-Armed Hugs [15]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Animal Instincts, Domestic Avengers, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4968874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second brood cocoons itself under the watchful gaze of the first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spidersleep II

Natasha had somehow forgotten just how fast it happens. In a matter of weeks her babies are three feet high, and she knows that their sleep is even closer. She stuffs them with meat and she and Clint stay behind from all the missions that can spare them, cuddling their babies and the first brood as well, who of course want all the cuddles they can get despite being so grownup already. They're a little restless, too, and Natasha realizes that they're smelling the chemical changes in their little siblings.

The morning Natasha finds her babies cocooned, the older girls are all asleep on the floor beside the web. She smiles, and goes to check on the little ones first. They smell nice and even healthier than the first brood had. It's probably the bugs. Each girl has woven her own cocoon like last time and so have the boys, but Anatoly and Lev's individual cocoons are swathed in another one that smells like a group effort. Natasha smiles, eyes a little wet at how protective the girls are. Human face-leaking is still weird, though, and she's glad that it stops. She gently shakes the older girls, and they sit up quietly, staring at the babies with wide eyes.

“Wow,” Oksana says, barely audible. “Did we look like that?”

“Almost exactly,” Natasha says. “I'm glad you want to protect the babies, but come and have breakfast after you look them over.” She knows she can't deny them one good inspection, to see and smell that the bags are sound and clean. Everyone coos over the boys in their shared bag, and they come to the kitchen only reluctantly, even though Natasha is making locust and eggs.

When Clint finally lurches up to join them, the girls swarm him, all talking at once about how adorable the babies are and how ready and willing they are to protect them. Clint smiles and hugs the group and then each in turn, telling them that he's proud of them for being such good big sisters. Natasha has read his file and knows how deeply his own older brother had failed him, and makes sure to give him a hug of her own once the girls are all fed.

This time the girls go to inform Grandpa and their various uncles that the babies are sleeping and that they'll be guarding them. They also tell visitors to come one at a time except for Bucky and Steve. They're allowed to walk into the room hand in hand, to crouch beside the web and exclaim in whispers about how long everyone's hair is getting. Everyone else has to come in by himself, and Thor is ejected for being too loud, even though he's being very quiet, for Thor. Dr. Cho doesn't have this problem when she comes, but the girls watch her warily, afraid she might poke their sleeping siblings in some medical way. As far as Natasha knows they could shake the bags like Clint does with microwave popcorn to evenly distribute the fake butter and not wake the babies, but their sisters are taking no chances and she loves them for it.

It's a good thing that the girls are so engaged, because the babies start to emerge during the tail end of a desperate fight with metahuman terrorists, and Natasha and Clint are both over a thousand miles away. They're sitting in one of the mobile medical stations that used to belong to SHIELD, arguing about a five-dollar bet about the exact variety and scope of Hulk's destruction when their comms both ping.

“Mom?” Rada squeaks, “Dad?”

“We're both here, baby,” Clint says. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong, but Olga is out of her bag and really, really wants to see you. We told her you were at work and made her a bunch of food, but she's still pretty depressed.”

It's so nice to have the team at their back. No one argues when they commandeer a quinjet and fly home as fast as they feasibly can, Steve calling ahead with a flight plan to keep them from running into anyone. They run to their floor as fast as they can, and arrive just in time to see Svetlana's six-inch nails shred through the side of her cocoon. Clint goes to help her out as Natasha cuddles Olga and Alisa and Ariadna fry more crickets. The other girls are all raptly watching the cocoons, and when Ania emerges while Clint is still getting Svetlana settled in his arms, Anastasia gathers her into her lap and the twins run to fetch more from the big pile of rare steak that the older girls had started at the prompting of some arachnid instinct.

Once Olga has recovered from emerging from her cocoon without her parents there, she's more than happy to stuff her face with steak, crickets, eggs, and chicken liver. Natasha chuckles, petting her long, dark-blonde mane. Clint just has time to bring Svetlana to the kitchen so she can cling to Marina and devour crickets before he has to go back and assist Raisa, who has become tangled in her efforts to escape. The other girls are busy with Tamara, who is tangled even worse and making angry cat noises. Raisa hugs Clint tightly, but then bolts past him to get food. He laughs and gathers Tamara into his arms where she sulks but lets him carry her into the kitchen.

Just as Anastasia was a day behind the rest of her brood, Susanna seems disinclined to wake, and the boys are only breathing a little faster. Clint fusses, of course, and sleeps on the floor beside them that night, their broodmates piled up around and on him. At about two a.m. the girls sit up so fast it startles Clint awake, and Natasha chuckles from her station on the other side of the web.

Clint's mouth is moving to ask her what's going on when he hears it. “Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!” Lev squeaks, and Natasha helps him out of his double bag.

“Hungry baby,” she coos, and carries him into the kitchen to feed him while the others watch Anatoly to see if he'll wake. For the next two hours he doesn't, and the girls look a lot like Clint as they sit their vigil. The younger girls are nearly asleep by the time Anatoly starts to twitch, but they all wake up at once. Anatoly is a little bigger than Lev now, but both of them are very small for their age. He tears at his cocoon with tiny hands, and Clint reaches in to help him, picking him up. Anatoly clings to Clint and hides his face in his chest because everyone is staring at him.

“It's okay, honey,” Clint tells him, carrying him to the kitchen so he can stuff himself with locusts. Natasha just has time to kiss his forehead and assure him that they can cut his hair when the girls call for her because Susanna is waking up. She seems very sleepy still, and Natasha has to prop her up so she can eat. At least this time they have the older girls to scoop up all the discarded webbing and to help Clint string new sleeping webs for the younger spiderlings. Natasha concentrates on feeding her youngest brood and cutting their impossible, curving claws. As far as she's concerned the hair can wait, but Anatoly seems to really hate it and insists on having his haircut now, munching on a locust as she works. Tamara wants the same, but the other girls and Lev opt to keep their princess tresses, at least for now.

“Bleh,” Anatoly informs his brother, batting at his golden curls, and Lev just laughs.

“It's pretty, so there.”

Clint laughs as he comes back in, and goes to kiss the top of Lev's head. “Own your prettiness, son,” he says, and Natasha laughs, pulling him into her arms when he gets close enough.

“Pretty like their father,” she coos, and has the satisfaction of seeing Clint blush.

**Author's Note:**

> Reader poll: What do you want to see before we time-jump to the adult careers and strange liaisons of the spiderlings? They will from now on develop much as the first did, and like them slow to near-human rates at about puberty or so.


End file.
